The Patient in ER Bay 3
by Sharlot
Summary: Nurse Jenny has the night-shift, a cranky patient, and a secret. Season 3 setting.


A/N These events occur in Season 3, sometime shortly after _Jus In Bello_

**The Patient in ER Bay 3**

Just my luck, I got stuck with the patient in ER Bay 3 because everyone claimed I was good with the combative types. Funny how you suddenly become "good" at shit no one else wants to be a part of.

The pair had come in just over an hour ago. Both had been covered head to toe in dirt and grime. And blood. The taller one unconscious, unresponsive…concussed for sure, possibly a fracture. They'd already whisked him away for scans and X-rays. I had the lucky job of trying to tend to his buddy or whoever the hell he was.

"I want to see my brother, right now." he said acidly. _Alright, brother it is, then._

It looked like he'd been swimming in soil; dusty granules showered his sandy hair like grimy pixie dust. Dirt grains clung to every pore on his face and neck, mingling with sweat and giving his skin a smudgy, lightly airbrushed appearance. His shirt had ripped just below his ribs where blood and dirt pooled to form a dark, gritty paste. And it was all so chillingly familiar, the dirt, the blood, and those damned angry eyes. _It's been more than nine long, agonizing months, now._ My thoughts flowed.

"Ok, you'll get to see him. Let's just clean you up a little, first." I bargained casually. I even reached up and palmed his shoulder gently. It's a lot harder to be a dick to someone who's offering a comforting touch. He subtly shrugged off my hand; perhaps not so much an act of anger as it was an attempt to demonstrate the lack of need.

"I'm fine. I just need to see Sam." He left no real room for argument, but I'd had years of experience with that same fucked up attitude. _Would you hold still and stop fighting me? I swear to god, David, this bullet won't take itself out!_

"Well, look," I said unfazed, "they're doing tests and that's going to take a little while. He's in good hands. Why don't you let me just take a look while you wait?" He looked to be weighing his options between being a prick and just giving in. He sighed and started removing both of his shirts. _'At a boy…_

He pointedly avoided eye-contact as I scanned his body for injuries. My own sudden intake of breath wasn't so much surprise as it was affirmation. _The dirt, the blood, the attitude—and now the scars. _An old puncture wound in his side, one…make that two gunshot wounds in the shoulder, one relatively new. Surgery scars, bet that one had been his spleen. And, fuck, was that a burn or brand mark? Vicious claw marks ran down his back that, by the look of them, had gotten dangerously infected and had scarred badly. _Jesus Christ, David, how did you manage to skewer yourself with your own silver stake?_

"So, what did you and your brother tussle with tonight?" I asked as I gently examined his newest wound. It was going to need several stitches. I started to irrigate the wound, clearing away the grime and waited for the lie.

He winced, either at the question or from my probings. I'm not sure which. "Septic tank." he said. _Septic tank. Good one_, I thought.

"Septic tank?" I repeated and leveled a dubious glance at him. "At two o'clock in the morning?"

"Well sister, when you gotta go, you gotta go." He shrugged me off. I continued to bathe the wound and test the waters.

I hesitated and cleared my throat, uncertain whether to proceed, but too damned curious, _too damned desperate_, not to. "You remind me of my brother." I waded in.

"Oh yeah?" he said "He a handsome devil, too?"

That earned a chuckle. _Charming rogue_, I thought. "No, not like that." I smiled and then sobered. "The scars. Lots of scars." I nodded, indicating his bare chest.

He immediately folded in a bit, defensive—self conscious. "Oh yeah? A klutz or a superhero?" he asked without appearing to give much of a shit about my answer, eying the door. His mind was elsewhere, probably down in the X-ray room, and our small-talk seemed to be an annoyance and an intrusion. He wriggled impatiently. I adjusted my grip on his shoulder a little more firmly. I didn't even care if he didn't want it. I needed the contact because I was eying a pretty hefty drop-off.

"No, he does a lot of hunting." I said as I searched his startled eyes and watched them run for cover.

"Hunting?" he scoffed through slitted lids, deliberately obtuse. "What? Bambi and Thumper get the jump on him?"

"Not that kind of hunting." I could see the truth flit across his face despite his sarcastic twitting. I plunged in. "He's a _Hunter_." I emphasized the word—my meaning clear to anyone with that dark secret. He continued to stare at me blankly, making no move, either too distrusting or too unwilling to acknowledge my statement. I, however, was no longer in doubt. I stopped even trying to dissemble. I gave his shoulder a little shake in solidarity.

The wound was cleaned and disinfected. I began to sew. He said nothing, but his posture changed perceptibly, opening ever so slightly. He was now looking at me, sizing me up.

I settled in and tended him quietly for a moment. "It was a vengeful spirit," I quietly offered finally, pausing to make eye-contact before resuming my work and continuing on, "when we were teens. I was 18, he was 16. It got both our parents." He regarded me with the slightest of nods, the first honest acknowledgement he'd made. I probably couldn't expect more. I continued to gently dab the blood away as I sewed. "We both kind of went off the deep-end for a couple of years afterwards. Researched, met people, traveled around. We eventually salted and burned that fucker, though it didn't help much. Not my brother, anyway. He was still hell-bent." I knotted, snipped and moved onto the next stitch. I had to smile ruefully. The hunter had been more communicative when we'd both been hiding. "So," I asked, nodding toward his wound, "that 'septic tank', did you get it cleaned up?" He nodded affirmatively but said nothing. "Good job." I said. I guess he didn't feel the need to talk. I did. "His name is David Johnson. My brother. Do you know him?" I was so fucking hopeful. _Please…please know him._

He shook his head. "No." I tied another knot.

I tried to hide my disappointment. I nodded. "We hunted together in those early years," I paused and wiped some more blood away, "until we fought a Wight in a New Orleans crypt. I took a hard blow to the head, concussed so bad I spoke nothing but gibberish for three straight days afterwards. Scared the hell out of him." I laughed in spite of myself. "He put his foot down after that. Told me if I really loved him, I'd go back home." The hunter nodded, no doubt siding with David on that one. I sighed. "And so I went back to school. That was ten years ago, now. Figured I could do more good for David this way." I gestured about me. "I have a room in my apartment completely outfitted and supplied, ready for when he stumbles in. Stitched him up too many damn times to count. Others, too. I've had a few midnight knocks on my door, hunters with no names who David had sent my way." The hunter hissed a little as I pulled a stitch. "Sorry," I soothed.

"'S'OK," he said.

I stopped my work a moment. I felt my dam about to burst. "I'm worried." I confessed. The hunter eyed a question. "I haven't seen or heard from him in nine months. It's not like him." I received a slow nod in response. "He always checked in after a hunt. Always. No phone calls, no turning up bloody outside my door—no nothing for months, now." Fuck, my eyes were welling. I couldn't pull the next stitch without stopping the leak. I grabbed a tissue. "And you know? I get it. I do. _The Life_ is hard. I know. I did it for a while. I always knew one day he wouldn't come home again." I shrugged in an attempt to minimize my loss. It wasn't this hunter's problem. Had nothing to do with him. "I always tried to accept that, but it's difficult, you know? The hardest part is not knowing, not having any clue. What happened? What got him? Had he been alone? Had he been scared? Did he have any fucking idea how much I loved him? Did that help him at all when the end came?" My voice hitched, and I strove to master my emotions. The hunter's green eyes turned sympathetic. He even touched my arm lightly, offering an anchor. I was grateful. I looked down at his fingers resting on my arm, dirty and bloody—each and every finger had been broken at one time or another. _Oh God, David..._ I took a deep, quivering breath. "The last time I spoke to him was late last spring. He'd finished up some hunt, was drowning it all away at some bar, somewhere." The hunter smiled at that and squeezed my arm just a little harder. "He'd been more than a little wasted at the time. 'Got the fucker, Jenny. You should'a seen it. Big, ugly mother! I'll call you tomorrow.'" I laughed grimly. Just one more stitch left. "Hell, the last thing I heard him say wasn't even directed at me. He was yammering at some barmaid just before he hung up, 'Ellen, you're fucking out of pretzels!' Not quite what I would have chosen as our last moment together, you know?" I felt my patient's body go rigid and his hand slipped off my arm. I absently taped the bandage and turned toward his sudden shift in posture.

The hunter looked stricken. His eyes had widened and his lips parted as he let out a slight huff of air—in stunned disbelief, perhaps? Or was it pain? I looked at him questioningly, confused by his strange response. Just then the doctor pulled back the curtain.

"Your brother's awake. He's calling for you. I'll take you to him," he said.

_The End_


End file.
